Advocacy and resource mobilisation - OneResponse

example, hygiene promotion, HIV and AIDS, or landmine awareness. In
some emergency contexts they also offer school feeding programmes which
play an important role in mitigating the risks of malnutrition and illness
among children and young people, and enable depleted food supplies at
household level to stretch a little further.
The role of education in providing protection
� Education protects – Education in emergencies is a necessity that can be
both life-sustaining and life-saving, providing physical, psychosocial and
cognitive protection. It saves lives by directly protecting against exploitation
and harm, and by disseminating key survival messages, such as landmine
safety or HIV/AIDS prevention. It sustains life by offering structure, stability
and hope for the future during a time of crisis, particularly for children and
young people, and provides essential building blocks for future economic
stability.
� Education can promote peace, prosperity and stability – With welldesigned
education programming, education can provide an entry point for
conflict resolution and peace-building by providing a neutral, structured
environment in which to tackle issues such as respect for human rights, and
inequality. Failing to sustain and protect education affects the capacity of
individuals and nations to recover from crisis and develop.
Advocating for resource mobilisation
Funding for education in conflict-affected, disaster-affected and fragile states is
totally inadequate, despite indications that almost two-thirds of children not
attending primary school are living in conflict-affected countries and territories. 50
Similarly, despite greater recognition of the need for, and benefits of, education
in emergencies, the sector still lacks the level of humanitarian funding required.
In order to address the consistent shortfall in funding for education in
emergencies, effective and repeated advocacy efforts are needed by both the
cluster and the Coordinator. The advocacy arguments outlined above can be used
to support these efforts.
Awareness-raising
Some cluster partners may find it difficult to distinguish between advocacy and
awareness-raising or information dissemination activities. Advocacy may include
awareness-raising; however, it goes a step further by seeking to bring about
change in institutional policy, positions or practice. For example, if certain groups,
such as internally displaced persons (IDPs), are denied access to education,
simply raising awareness is not enough. Subsequent action or change in behavior
will be needed to secure their access to education.
50
UNICEF (2009) All Children Everywhere: A strategy for basic education and gender
equality
248 | May 2010